China, with an economy of 1.3 billion people that's growing at 7.9 percent this year, should ease barriers and allow greater foreign stakes in its markets to bolster regional growth.
That's the message at the end of the two-day meeting of the APEC forum's 21 finance ministers in Suzhou, a city of budding industrial firms in eastern China.
"I believe free, open trade with no restrictions is in the interest of the world. There is boundless opportunity for China to continue to grow domestically and in its trade in the world," US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said at a joint press conference of ministers after the meeting.
What the message means is it's not enough for China to merely play the host at APEC. The fastest-growing economy in Asia needs to open its markets to greater foreign products, and ease investment rules to let companies from other APEC economies set up business, economists said.
"We acknowledge the need for creating a conducive environment for entrepreneurship, and promoting and broadening private sector development within the APEC community," an official communique released by the ministers at the end of the meeting said.
"We're confident that the leaders of APEC member economies can link hands and mutually face the current economic slowdown," Chinese Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng (
"We can already roughly estimate when the slowdown will reach a bottom and then recover, so our confidence is strengthening. I feel that this APEC meeting was very helpful in allowing us to exchange viewpoints and in strengthening confidence."
"Trade and investment liberalization and facilitation will increase investor confidence, attract capital to the region, stimulate growth and reduce poverty," the declaration said.
But the five-page declaration was void of details of how APEC countries would work together to turn their economies around.
New Zealand Finance Minister Michael Cullen said there were hopes of an upturn by the end of the year and that the current gloom was a temporary slowdown rather than a crisis like the economic collapse that hit Southeast Asia in 1997.
"I think there's a general feeling around the table that while there are still significant risks, it was important to send the message that we are not looking at any kind of systemic failure like the Asian financial crisis," Cullen said.
Critics of APEC -- whose members span the economic and ideological spectrum from industrial giants like the US and Japan to impoverished Papua New Guinea and Communist Vietnam -- say the body is all talk and no action.
But Cullen said APEC's diversity was one of its strengths.
"I think it does have value, in part because it is varied," he said. "It covers a significant cross-section of the world."
Cullen said one of the main benefits of APEC was that it gave the opportunity for ministers to talk informally.
"There is the capacity for ministers to meet informally and to gain confidence in each other, to understand each other," he said.
APEC's relevance has declined since its early days a decade ago, when member countries thought they were witnessing the dawn of a "Pacific century" of economic success.
That dream is over, crushed by the 1997 Asian crisis, debt problems in South America and the latest world slump.
But APEC retains significant economic clout -- its members have a combined GDP of US$18 trillion and account for 44 percent of global trade.Also See One China
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